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Exploding Box Card for Mother’s Day!

Happy Mother’s Day! I hope all the mums out there have been appreciated by their families today and had a well-earned break from chores. My boys have both created beautiful pictures for me at nursery, which I will treasure forever.

I decided to try something new for my mother in law’s card for Mother’s Day – an exploding box card. I’ve seen a few different versions online, particularly the kind you can fold up to put in an envelope, but I really fancied just having a go at one you could just pull the lid off and WOW!!!

Here’s what I did:

I took a piece of A3 Centura Pearl and squared it off (a 12″ x 12″ piece of cardstock would have worked better but I didn’t think of that at the time!), divided it into 9 equal squares, cut away the four outer corner squares, and scored the folds.

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Divided into 9 squares

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Corners cut away

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Score fold lines

I used a few different Hunkydory Collections – Floral Enchantment, A Touch of Style, and Butterfly Sorbet for my exploding box card main features and patterned card. After choosing the pieces I wanted, I decorated the inner and outer box sides. I also used a piece of mirri card on the inner base to add lots of reflection. I kept chopping and changing my mind about which way I wanted the Centura pearl face, so I ended up using my bone folder on both sides of the score lines – giving me floppy sides! I didn’t want the exploding box to be flat after it’s explosion so I added in four ‘retaining strips’ to hold the sides up slightly. This wouldn’t have been necessary if I had left some stiffness in the folds.

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Outer sides of the box

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Inner box decor plus ‘retaining strips’

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Assembling the card elements on acetate

Next I made the lid. The box base is 10cm square so I simply added 3mm to allow to fit, plus 3cm at each side for the depth, and that gave me the measurements to create the lid. To decorate I used some more mirri, a Joy Crafts tag die to cut from another Hunkydory element, some lovely caramel satin ribbon, and a few more Hunkydory pieces.

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Lid under construction

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Decorated – the fun bit

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Finished

I built the base elements by cutting various sizes and widths of acetate and attaching them to the pieces I wanted as the central features. I had to play about with the positioning and angles of the acetate, in order to make sure the pieces were all stood correctly and leaning the right way! Some pieces of acetate I zig zagged, in order to give some bounce, and some I left straight. I just played about starting with the biggest pieces and filling all spaces with the smaller pieces, and kept checking periodically that it folded up nicely and sprung out again. Luckily I found that the red tape could be peeled from the acetate, which came in handy every time I changed my mind about something!

Eventually…

Anyone want to see the explosion???

Hope you enjoyed the making of my first exploding box! I think I’ll be giving that another go soon, it was a lot of fun to create. I have also created a Pinterest board of Exploding Box Cards if you want to see some absolutely fabulous creations.

10 thoughts on “Exploding Box Card for Mother’s Day!”

wow!!! this is gorgeous Emma!!!!! I’m pretty sure your mother in law loved it!!!! it’s a long time I haven’t made one of this… I made two about 2 years ago before my blog… I love all the pretty details, beautiful! love it!
Hugs
Mirella DK

WOW! Emma you have been busy again…not sure how you find all this time with two boisterous lads…sorry 3!!. This is beautiful and so much work in it. I bet Mum-in-Law loved it…and you got brownie points!! lol
I think your boys are going to be artistic like Mum…lovely pictures to treasure.